Saturday, November 23, 2013

Can Will Muschamp survive after loss to Georgia Southern?

No lower-division team had ever beaten the Florida Gators, who won their previous seven games against Football Championship Subdivision teams by an average of 45 points.

That was until today when Georgia Southern marched into the swamp and shocked the Gators 26-20 for arguably the school's worse loss in team history. Florida, which paid Georgia Southern $550,000 for this game to be a punching bag was the team left on the canvas.

Even though Florida was depleted by injury and came into the game with a losing record this still goes down as an upset. The Eagles, which won their third consecutive game despite playing without 19 of 65 scholarship athletes, so this loss doesn't make any sense for Florida fans.

The question after this loss is can Gators coach Will Muschamp survive after what's sure to be a 4-8 season after the finale against in state rival Florida State. The Gators have already lost to a revived Miami team and look in danger to falling to the third best program in the state. If Central Florida can keep heir momentum the Gators could fall to number four.

Athletic director Jeremy Foley and school president Bernie Machen said last week Muschamp was safe, but that was before the worst loss in school history and before there were thousands of no-shows in The Swamp.

Muschamp did lead the Gators to the Sugar Bowl last season but the offense has been fairly dismal during his tenure. In all fairness, despite the injuries Muschamp has kept the Gators competitive. That might not be enough in today's landscape.

Muschamp has gone 7-6, 11-2, and currently sports a 4-7 record that will end the nation's longest bowl streak. Not exactly the win totals of Steve Spurrier, Urban Meyer, or even the ghost of Charley Pell This is a program that is used to winning big. There might not be enough support for Muschamp to weather this storm.

Jeremy Foley has a tough decision on his hands because this is the same coach that led the Gators to an 11-2 season a year ago. A lot of things have gone wrong this season, some totally out of Muschamp’s control. Had Muschamp won this game, Foley probably could have given Muschamp a pass even with a bad loss to Florida State. But now, with this embarrassment, there might be nothing left to do but cut ties.